by Andre Dubus
‘Set up Lou,’ he said to McCarthy. ‘Lou. Can I buy you a shot?’
Lou nodded and smiled, and she watched McCarthy pour the Fleischmann’s and bring it and a draft to Lou, and she wondered if she could tend bar, could remember all the drinks. It was a wonderful place to be, this bar, with her back to the door so she got some of the chill, not all stuffy air and smoke, and able to look down the length of the bar, and at the young men crowded into four tables at the end of the room, watching a television set on a shelf on the wall: a hockey game. It was the only place outside of her home where she always felt the comfort of affection. Shivering with a gulp of tequila, she watched Wayne arm-wrestling with Curt: knuckles white and hand and face red, veins showing at his temple and throat. She had never seen either win, but Wayne had told her that till a year ago he had always won.
‘Pull,’ she said.
His strength and effort seemed to move into the air around her, making her restless; she slapped his back, lit a cigarette, wanted to dance. She called McCarthy and pointed to the draft glasses, then Curt’s highball glass, and when he came with the drinks, told him Wayne would pay after he beat Curt. She was humming to herself, and she liked the sound of her voice. She wondered if she could tend bar. People didn’t fight here. People were good to her. They wouldn’t—A color television. They shouldn’t buy it too soon; but when? Who would care? Nobody watched what they bought. She wanted to count the money, but did not want to leave until closing. Wayne and Curt were panting and grunting; their arms were nearly straight up again; they had been going slowly back and forth. She slipped a hand into Wayne’s jacket pocket, squeezed the folded wad. She had just finished a cigarette but now she was holding another and wondering if she wanted it, then she lit it and did. There was only a men’s room in the bar. ‘Draw?’ Curt said; ‘Draw,’ Wayne said, and she hugged his waist and rubbed his right bicep and said: ‘I ordered us and Curt a round. I didn’t pay. I’m going piss.’
He smiled down at her. The light in his eyes made her want to stay holding him. She walked toward the end of the bar, past the backs of leaning drinkers; some noticed her and spoke; she patted backs, said Hi How you doing Hey what’s happening; big curly-haired Mitch stopped her: Yes, she was still at Sunnycorner; where had he been? Working in New Hampshire. He told her what he did, and she heard, but seconds later she could not remember; she was smiling at him. He called to Wayne and waved. She said I’ll see you in a minute, and moved on. At the bar’s end was Lou. He reached for her, raised the other arm at McCarthy. He held her shoulder and pulled her to him.
‘Let me buy you a drink.’
‘I have to go to the ladies’.’
‘Well, go to the ladies’ and come back.’
‘Okay.’
She did not go. Her shot and their drafts were there and she was talking to Lou. She did not know what he did either. She used to know. He looked sixty. He came every night. His grey hair was short and he laughed often and she liked his wrinkles.
‘I wish I could tend bar here.’
‘You’d be good at it.’
‘I don’t think I could remember all the drinks.’
‘It’s a shot and beer place.’
His arm was around her, her fingers pressing his ribs. She drank. The tequila was smooth now. She finished the beer, said she’d be back, next round was hers; she kissed his cheek: his skin was cool and tough, and his whiskers scraped her chin. She moved past the tables crowded with the hockey watchers; Henry coming out of the men’s room moved around her, walking carefully. She went through the door under the television set, into a short hall, glanced down it into the doorless, silent kitchen, and stepped left into the rear of the dining room: empty and darkened. Some nights she and Wayne brought their drinks in here after the kitchen closed and sat in a booth in the dark. The ladies’ room was empty. ‘Ah.’ Wayne was right: when you really had to piss, it was better than sex. She listened to the voices from the bar, wanted to hurry back to them. She jerked the paper, tore it.
Lou was gone. She stood where he had been, but his beer glass was gone, the ashtray emptied. He was like that. He came and went quietly. You’d look around and see him for the first time and he already had a beer; sometime later you’d look around and he was gone. Behind Wayne the front door opened and a blue cap and jacket and badge came in: it was Ryan from the beat. She made herself think in sentences and tried to focus on them, as if she were reading: He’s coming in to get warm. He’s just cold. She waved at him. He did not see her. She could not remember the sentences. She could not be afraid either. She knew that she ought to be afraid so she would not make any mistakes but she was not, and when she tried to feel afraid or even serious she felt drunker. Ryan was standing next to Curt, one down from Wayne, and had his gloves off and was blowing on his hands. He and McCarthy talked, then he left; at the door he waved at the bar, and Anna waved. She went toward Wayne, then stopped at the two girls: one was Laurie or Linda, she couldn’t remember which; one was Jessie. They were still flanked by Bobby and Mark. They all turned their backs to the bar, pressed her hands, touched her shoulders, bought her a drink. She said tequila, and drank it and talked about Sunnycorner. She went to Wayne, told McCarthy to set up Bobby and Mark and Jessie—leaning forward: ‘Johnny, what is it? Laurie or Linda?’ ‘Laurie.’ She slipped a hand into Wayne’s pocket. Then her hand was captive there, fingers on money, his forearm pressing hers against his side.
‘I’ll get it. Did you see Ryan?’
‘Yes.’
She tried to think in sentences again. She looked up at Wayne; he was grinning down at her. She could see the grin, or his eyes, but not both at once. She gazed at his lips.
‘You’re cocked,’ he said. He was not angry. He said it softly, and took her wrist and withdrew it from his pocket.
‘I’ll do it in the John.’
She wanted to be as serious and careful as he was, but looking at him and trying to see all of his face at once weakened her legs; she tried again to think in sentences but they jumped away from her like a cat her mind chased; when she turned away from him, looked at faces farther away and held the bar, her mind stopped struggling and she smiled and put her hand in his back pocket and said: ‘Okay.’
He started to walk to the men’s room, stopping to talk to someone, being stopped by another; watching him, she was smiling. When she became aware of it, she kept the smile; she liked standing at the corner of the bar smiling with love at her man’s back and profile as he gestured and talked; then he was in the men’s room. Midway down the bar McCarthy finished washing glasses and dried his hands, stepped back and folded his arms, and looked up and down the bar, and when he saw nothing in front of her he said: ‘Anna? Another round?’
‘Just a draft, okay?’
She looked in her wallet; she knew it was empty but she looked to be sure it was still empty; she opened the coin pouch and looked at lint and three pennies. She counted the pennies. Johnny put the beer in front of her.
‘Wayne’s got—’
‘On me,’ he said. ‘Want a shot too?’
‘Why not.’
She decided to sip this one or at least drink it slowly, but while she was thinking, the glass was at her lips and her head tilted back and she swallowed it all and licked her lips, then turned to the door behind her and, without coat, stepped outside: the sudden cold emptied her lungs, then she deeply drew in the air tasting of night and snow. ‘Wow.’ She lifted her face to the light snow and breathed again. Had she smoked a Camel? Yes. From Lou. Jesus. Snow melted on her cheeks. She began to shiver. She crossed the sidewalk, touched the frosted parking meter. One of her brothers did that to her when she was little. Which one? Frank. Told her to lick the bottom of the ice tray. In the cold she stood happy and clear-headed until she wanted to drink, and she went smiling into the warmth and voices and smoke.
‘Where’d you go?’ Wayne said.
‘Outside to get straight,’ rubbing her hands together, drinking beer, its head go
ne, shaking a cigarette from her pack, her flesh recalling its alertness outside as, breathing smoke and swallowing beer and leaning on Wayne, it was lulled again. She wondered if athletes felt all the time the way she had felt outside.
‘We should get some bicycles,’ she said.
He lowered his mouth to her ear, pushing her hair aside with his rubbing face.
‘We can,’ his breath in her ear; she turned her groin against his leg. ‘It’s about two thousand.’
‘No, Wayne.’
‘Ssshhh. I looked at it, man.’
He moved away, and put a bill in her hand: a twenty.
‘Jesus,’ she said.
‘Keep cool.’
‘I’ve never—’ She stopped, called McCarthy, and paid for the round for Laurie and Jessie and Bobby and Mark, and tipped him a dollar. Two thousand dollars: she had never seen that much money in her life, had never had as much as a hundred in her hands at one time: not of her own.
‘Last call.’ McCarthy started at the other end of the bar, taking empty glasses, bringing back drinks. ‘Last call.’ She watched McCarthy pouring her last shot and draft of the night; she faced Wayne and raised the glass of tequila: ‘Hi, babe.’
‘Hi.’ He licked salt from his hand.
‘I been forgetting the salt,’ she said, and drank, looking at his eyes. She sipped this last one, finished it, and was drinking the beer when McCarthy called: ‘That’s it. I’m taking the glasses in five minutes. You don’t have to go home—’
‘—but you can’t stay here,’ someone said.
‘Right. Drink up.‘
She finished the beer and beckoned with her finger to McCarthy. When he came she held his hands and said: ‘Just a quick one?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Just half a draft or a quick shot? I’ll drink it while I put my coat on.’
‘The cops have been checking. I got to have the glasses off the bar.’
‘What about a roader?’ Wayne said.
‘Then they’ll all want one.’
‘Okay. He’s right, Anna. Let go of the man.’
She released his hands and he took their glasses. She put on her coat. Wayne was waving at people, calling to them. She waved: ‘See you people. Good night, Jessie. Laurie. Good night. See you, Henry. Mark. Bobby. Bye-bye, Mitch—’
Then she was in the falling white cold, her arm around Wayne; he drove them home, a block and a turn around the Chevrolet lot, then two blocks, while in her mind still were the light and faces and voices of the bar. She held his waist going up the dark stairs. He was breathing hard, not talking. Then he unlocked the door, she was inside, lights coming on, coat off, following Wayne to the kitchen where he opened their one beer and took a swallow and handed it to her and pulled money from both pockets. They sat down and divided the bills into stacks of twenties and tens and fives and ones. When the beer was half gone he left and came back from the bedroom with four Quaaludes and she said: ‘Mmmm’ and took two from his palm and swallowed them with beer. She picked up the stack of twenties. Her legs felt weak again. She was hungry. She would make a sandwich. She put down the stack and sat looking at the money. He was counting: ‘—thirty-five forty forty-five fifty—’ She took the ones. She wanted to start at the lowest and work up; she did not want to know how many twenties there were until the end. She counted aloud and he told her not to.
‘You don’t either,’ she said. ‘All I hear is ninety-five hundred ninety-five hundred—’
‘Okay. In our heads.’
She started over. She wanted to eat and wished for a beer and lost count again. Wayne had a pencil in his hand, was writing on paper in front of him. She counted faster. She finished and picked up the twenties. She counted slowly, making a new stack on the table with the bills that she drew, one at a time, from her hand. She did not keep track of the sum of money; she knew she was too drunk. She simply counted each bill as she smacked it onto the pile. Wayne was writing again, so she counted the last twelve aloud, ending with: ‘—and forty-six,’ slamming it onto the fanning twenties. He wrote and drew a line and wrote again and drew another line, and his pencil moved up the columns, touching each number and writing a new number at the bottom until there were four of them, and he read to her: ‘Two thousand and eighteen.’
The Quaalude bees were in her head now, and she stood and went to the living room for a cigarette in her purse, her legs wanting to go to the sink at her right but she forced them straight through the door whose left jamb they bumped; as she reached into her purse she heard herself humming. She had thought she was talking to Wayne, but that was in her head, she had told him Two thousand and eighteen we can have some music and movies now and she smiled aloud because it had come out as humming a tune she had never heard. In the kitchen Wayne was doing something strange. He had lined up their three glasses on the counter by the sink and he was pouring milk into them; it filled two and a half, and he drank that half. Then he tore open the top of the half-gallon carton and rinsed it and swabbed it out with a paper towel. Then he put the money in it, and folded the top back, and put it in the freezer compartment, and the two glasses of milk in the refrigerator. Then she was in the bedroom talking about frozen money; she saw the cigarette between her fingers as she started to undress, in the dark now; she was not aware of his turning out lights: she was in the lighted kitchen, then in the dark bedroom, looking for an ashtray instead of pulling her sleeve over the cigarette, and she told him about that and about a stereo and Emmylou Harris and fucking, as she found the ashtray on the floor by the bed, which was a mattress on the floor by the ashtray; that she thought about him at Sunnycorner, got horny for him; her tongue was thick, slower than her buzzing head, and the silent words backed up in the spaces between the spoken ones, so she told him something in her mind, then heard it again as her tongue caught up; her tongue in his mouth now, under the covers on the cold sheet, a swelling of joy in her breast as she opened her legs for him and the night’s images came back to her: the money on the table and the faces of McCarthy and Curt and Mitch and Lou, and Wayne’s hand disappearing with the money inside the carton, and Bobby and Mark and Laurie and Jessie, the empty sidewalk where she stood alone in the cold air, Lou saying: You’d be good at it.
The ringing seemed to come from inside her skull, insistent and clear through the voices of her drunken sleep: a ribbon of sound she had to climb, though she tried to sink away from it. Then her eyes were open and she turned off the alarm she did not remember setting; it was six o’clock and she was asleep again, then wakened by her alarmed heartbeat: all in what seemed a few seconds, but it was ten minutes to seven, when she had to be at work. She rose with a fast heart and a headache that made her stoop gingerly for her clothes on the floor and shut her eyes as she put them on. She went into the kitchen: the one empty beer bottle, the ashtray, the milk-soiled glass, and her memory of him putting away the money was immediate, as if he had just done it and she had not slept at all. She took the milk carton from the freezer. The folded money, like the bottle and ashtray and glass, seemed part of the night’s drinking, something you cleaned or threw away in the morning. But she had no money and she needed aspirins and coffee and doughnuts and cigarettes; she took a cold five-dollar bill and put the carton in the freezer, looked in the bedroom for her purse and then in the kitchen again and found it in the living room, opened her wallet and saw money there. She pushed the freezer money in with it and slung the purse from her shoulder and stepped into the dim hall, shutting the door on Wayne’s snoring. Outside she blinked at sun and cold and remembered Wayne giving her twenty at the bar; she crossed the street and parking lot and, with the taste of beer in her throat and toothpaste in her mouth, was in the Sunnycorner before seven.
She spent the next eight hours living the divided life of a hangover. Drinking last night had stopped time, kept her in the present until last call forced on her the end of a night, the truth of tomorrow; but once in their kitchen counting money, she was in the present again and she s
tayed there through twice waking, and dressing, and entering the store and relieving Eddie, the all-night clerk, at the register. So for the first three or four hours while she worked and waited and talked, her body heavily and slowly occupied space in those brightly lit moments in the store; but in her mind were images of Wayne leaving the car and going into the drugstore and running out, and driving home through falling snow, the closed package store and the drinks and people at Timmy’s and taking the Quaaludes from Wayne’s palm, and counting money and making love for so drunk long; and she felt all of that and none of what she was numbly doing. It was a hangover that demanded food and coffee and cigarettes. She started the day with three aspirins and a Coke. Then she smoked and ate doughnuts and drank coffee. Sometimes from the corner of her eye she saw something move on the counter, small and grey and fast, like the shadow of a darting mouse. Her heart was fast too, and the customers were fast and loud, while her hands were slow, and her tongue was, for it had to wait while words freed themselves from behind her eyes, where the pain was, where the aspirins had not found it. After four cups of coffee, her heart was faster and hands more shaky, and she drank another Coke. She was careful, and made no mistakes on the register; with eyes trying to close she looked into the eyes of customers and Kermit, the manager, slim and balding, in his forties; a kind man but one who, today, made her feel both scornful and ashamed, for she was certain he had not had a hangover in twenty years. Around noon her blood slowed and her hands stopped trembling, and she was tired and lightheaded and afraid; it seemed there was always someone watching her, not only the customers and Kermit, but someone above her, outside the window, in the narrow space behind her. Now there were gaps in her memory of last night: she looked at the clock so often that its hands seemed halted, and in her mind she was home after work, in bed with Wayne, shuddering away the terrors that brushed her like a curtain wind-blown against her back.